


when we meet again

by cirrus (themorninglark)



Series: SASO 2017 [49]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Challenge: Sports Anime Shipping Olympics | SASO 2017, Growing Up, M/M, long distance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2017-08-31
Packaged: 2018-12-22 03:06:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11958411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themorninglark/pseuds/cirrus
Summary: The first year is the longest, because old habits are hard to unlearn.





	when we meet again

**Author's Note:**

> Written for SASO 2017 Bonus Round 7: Free For All | originally posted [here](https://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/25713.html?thread=16176753#cmt16176753)

The first year is the longest.

It’s Kenma who brushes it off like it’s nothing, who tells Kuroo, without even looking up from the TV, that it’s not like anything will change. He doesn’t bother to elaborate further. From where he’s lying prone on the floor, his fingers move swiftly across a well-worn gamepad.

Kuroo kicks the spare blankets over him and turns down the light on his way out.

 

* * *

 

The first year is the longest, because old habits are hard to unlearn.

Without someone to keep him in check, Kuroo wakes up too early, runs too far, too fast, and finds himself at the end of a deserted pier, gazing out at the sea. The cry of the gulls overhead is just as raucous as the crows of home, though there’s a lot less garbage on the boardwalk and the sunrise on the water is something to behold.

They never woke up to a sight like this, in Nerima. Kuroo thinks, slapping at a sandfly, that Kenma might find it overrated.

Kenma sends him texts so mundane they’re positively mind-numbing. _hey, how do i do this organic chem. hey, where did you put the scarf i lent you. hey, my mum is sending you some apple pie. in case you miss home._

Kuroo replies in kind. Sometimes, he asks after the team, but not too often; he knows Kenma will bristle if he hovers too close. It’s never been his style anyway. Kenma is his own kind of captain, and Kuroo’s taught himself to reel in, let go gracefully, after all this time.

The second year goes by faster. After that, Kuroo stops counting.

These are their habits, now, and new habits that do not melt with springtime are here to stay. He always saves the apple pie to savour, bit by bit, until there are only crumbs left in the box, and then he runs a fingertip through them and licks them off slowly, eyes closed.

 

* * *

 

It is in a year sometime down the road that Kenma moves out of their old neighbourhood, closer to work, and invites Kuroo over as his first house guest.

“Don’t sugarcoat it,” Kuroo had said, smirking when Kenma called. “You just want me to help you fix your lights, or something.”

“Yeah. Are you coming or not?”

“What do you think?”

He had hung up after Kenma’s noncommittal huff and _see you tomorrow_ , stared at the train lines winding overhead, wondered to himself how he could have spent nearly all of his life with a voice and not know its mellow sound over the phone. Sometimes, he thinks, Kenma is wrong about some things, smart as he is; sometimes, things change.

 

* * *

 

Kenma _had_ mentioned in passing that he’d given up bleaching his hair from sheer laziness, that he’d let it grow out because he just didn’t have time these days. Kuroo had joked about helping him cut it, like he did once when they were kids. Kenma had categorically refused.

He’d known all this, and yet Kuroo isn’t prepared to see Kenma with his hair pulled back into a messy ponytail when he opens the door. Stray strands frame his face in black, the way they used to, and he’s dressed in an oversized sweater; there is cinnamon and autumn on Kuroo’s tongue again, on the scent of the wind.

_Cute_ is a word that Kuroo’s heard before, used on Kenma. He’s never seen it, himself. Kenma is sharp and smart, prickly and a fine-veined kind of balance, patient and impatient and languid all at once, a contradictory bundle of impossibilities—

“Don’t just stand there.” Kenma waves him in, and turns around. “What are you staring for?”

“Just thinking that cute is relative,” says Kuroo, reaching to tug at his ponytail, an old smile curving his lips.


End file.
